And speaking of school
Today is International Ask The Internet Day. Didn’t you know? Ask the internet, they’ll tell you. Or at the very least, I say so. Largely because my folks are leaving today and I would rather go spend their last few hours here with them than tell you all about how well, I was SUPPOSED to go for an MRI this morning, but my SUPER FANTASTIC HEALTH INSURANCE decided not to pay for it. So I decided not to go! I’ll show THEM! Because they’ll be SORRY when I’m DEAD!
Anyway.
Internet, my daughter’s fourth grade teacher responded to my “What can I do to help?” query by saying, “You seem like you’re a crafty type! We need some sort of holiday craft for the kids to do, something they’ll enjoy and that they can bring home as a gift for their parents. Got any ideas?” And when I finished laughing (me, the crafty type? has she MET me?) I said “I WOULD LOVE TO! LET ME GET BACK TO YOU! WHY AM I SHOUTING?” and then I ran away as fast as my not-at-all-crafty legs would take me.
So. I need a holiday-friendly (all holidays! especially Christmahanukwanzakah!) craft suitable for 9- and 10-year-olds that I can do with them in about an hour, where the materials won’t be too costly and I won’t want to chew off my own arm to escape during the actual, um, crafting. Ideas?
Available for committees and eye-rolling
In our old town, at our old school, I confess that I never went to a single PTA meeting. Even though one of my very best friends was the PTA president. Hey, I was a single mom on a budget, and paying a sitter to go to a boring meeting just wasn’t very high on my list of priorities. I compromised; I did the newsletter for a while, so that I could say I was contributing. And really, there was an entire contingent of people who positively LIVED for the PTA, so it’s not like they needed me there.
(I do loves me some justification. Hooboy.)
Anyway, here in our new school, I’m more involved. Part of it is that I don’t need to get a sitter, and part of it is that I really want to know what’s happening here because this is a school with issues. Oh, and, um, I’m just a really spectacular mother! Whoops, there go my eyes again. read more…
No place like home
This weekend my dad and stepmom arrived for their first visit to our place here in Georgia. It’s been a long time since we last saw them, because we used to live within driving distance and now one has to be organized enough to make plane reservations, plus they recently spent the better part of a month in Australia because they love wallabies and echidnas more than me.
Not that I’m bitter.
Anyway, they showed up on Saturday afternoon and we were all very excited to see them, and also to give them the grand tour of our new digs. “Chickadee, why don’t you show Grandma and Grandpa your room since that’s where they’ll be sleeping,” I suggested. We all trooped upstairs to Chickadee’s room, whereupon Monkey had a fit because WE ALWAYS GO IN HER ROOM FIRST. read more…
I couldn’t make this stuff up
My office is right off the garage. This exchange just took place through the door between me and them.
Me: Why don’t you guys leave Otto alone so he can finish getting your bikes ready?
Chickadee: We’re WATCHING!
Me: You’re not WATCHING, you’re HARANGUING him.
Chickadee: No we’re not!
Monkey: We are NOT strangling him, Mama!
Distracted
Recent events have turned me into a not altogether pleasant person. I am worried sick about Monkey; there is a story forthcoming about The House That Will Not Sell that sort of makes me want to punch myself in the face because, honestly, there should be a limit to the number of times a person can whine about such things, but mostly I want to punch my realtor in the face (hint: he is “just as frustrated” as I am about the current situation, he likes to assure me); work is a little stressful right now (ha! ha! just a little!); and next week I have to go have an MRI because I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT. So.
This results in things like sitting on the couch with Otto in the evenings, being not nearly so interested in the Red Sox as I ought to be because I’m busy working on my laptop, and whining a lot. read more…
Must. Control. Fists. Of. Death.
I am trying.
I am trying to see and appreciate the good in the folks who are TRYING to help my child despite various limitations, be they the constraints of school policy, understaffing, or their own preconceived notions.
Or their own faulty memories.
So let’s get this right out of the way up front: I love Monkey’s teacher. I do. She’s a veteran and she has gone out of her way to to do certain things for him even when the school administration has dragged their feet, and despite the occasional interesting spelling (this week’s feature: candycorn! all one word!) I think she’s pretty good at her job. More importantly, I can tell that she genuinely cares for Monkey. I can forgive a lot in the face of genuine affection.
But I am reaching my limit. read more…
One breakdown at a time, please
I don’t know what it’s like when you have more than a couple of kids (Chris?), but when you only have two, there is a very fine unwritten rule to which they instinctively adhere: Only one child can be in crisis at a time*.
*The exception to this rule is a direct confrontation between siblings, at which point it is permissible to both run screaming to your mother as if being chased by rabid wolverines, whereupon you will end up drawing equal consequences for squabbling over a pencil with such fervor.
Yesterday morning, Chickadee got up on the wrong side of the bed. The side of the bed from which she arose was located in Newark airport, I suspect, as that was the most unpleasant place I could envision within a reasonable radius. And the way she was acting, it was very easy to picture her having arisen in the airport on Christmas Eve, with her flight canceled, during a blizzard, trapped overnight with no luggage, and a large hairy man with body odor squished down next to her on the floor. THAT was more or less how she was acting. read more…
You can find me face-down in the flour
Fall has arrived here in Georgia! I know this because our grass is dead. Oh, sure, it was dead before. But now it is REALLY dead. Deader than dead. You can hear it crying as you walk across the lawn and huge tufts of it throw themselves up out of the soil behind your shoes, begging to be put out of their misery.
The pool is closed (that sounds so much more important than “we done threw a big tarp over the water”) and the mornings are chilly. I have been leaving my office door open in the afternoons to catch a breeze, and although it’s still hot around lunchtime, the rest of the day is actually quite lovely.
This is the time of year when I start cooking things that make the whole house smell good, partially because I like to cook and I love to eat, but mostly because delicious smells wafting out of the kitchen temper the bite in the air. Only, the problem is that any bite October has in Georgia, by noon it’s been replaced with HEAT, so my internal cooking thermostat is off. read more…
When the cat’s away, the mice. . .
… have big plans but in the end are astonishingly lazy.
(Wow, that really doesn’t roll off the tongue quite the way the original does, huh?)
The kids spent the weekend with their father, which meant that after Monkey’s soccer game on Saturday they piled into a rental car and headed off to… well, I’m not sure where. Maybe they told me, but I was too busy waving and driving off with Otto yelling “FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST!” Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad.
We set off on a rollicking adventure which would take us out to lunch and over to the local Goodwill. Because we are WILD.
We also, of course, had weekend plans equivalent to about three weeks worth of projects and decadence. On the one hand, there were so many things we needed to accomplish around the house, things which would be easier to do without kids underfoot. On the other hand, ice cream. You can see our dilemma, I’m sure.
So we did our best to make the most of the weekend, despite the strong gravitational pull we experienced from the couch. read more…
A very special talent
So if you had the WHOLE DAY to go do absolutely anything you wanted to WITHOUT CHILDREN, what would you do?
If you were me and Otto, you’d (finally!) go over to Pier 1 with that $25 gift card the realtor gave us in June and promptly fall in love with the most expensive dining room table and chairs in the place.
(It costs… slightly more than $25.) (And by “slightly” I of course mean HOLY HELL, BACK AWAY FROM THE LEATHER CHAIRS WHILST YOU OWN TWO HOUSES, CRAZYHEADS.)
The rest of the day was sort of a wash, after that. We had to use the rest of the afternoon to ponder whether we’re stupid beyond belief or just have impeccable taste. And don’t think our empty dining room isn’t mocking us while we wonder, either.